Opinion: PoL and high tiers do not fit in the long run

[xechnao]

Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms....true....not PoL as written in the books, but certainly could be employed with a PoL tool by any DM.

However, Dark Sun and especially Planescape were PoL right out of the box. Heck...if Planescape was not PoL, I don't know what ever could be!

Planescape is the Good, Neutral, Evil, Law, Chaos setting. It provides a balnce reason for PoL. It is build on this balance reason. It is not a Pol setting. It has PoL elements.

 

[PeterWeller]

Huh? What does that even mean?

Thinking about it a little more, I think it means any decent DM can think of a reason why the world remains PoL even with epic heroes out to save the day.

 

[The Ubbergeek]

Planescape is the Good, Neutral, Evil, Law, Chaos setting. It provides a balnce reason for PoL. It is build on this balance reason. It is not a Pol setting. It has PoL elements.

But Dark Sun is the most PoL setting ever. brutal, violent world... dying earth.... few good souls... autocratic dictators, gladiators, etc,...

 

[xechnao]

Are we talking about interspecies conflict now? I thought we were talking about good and evil. Homo sapiens' dominance hasn't done anything to stop the development of evil. If anything, it's promoted the spread of evil as much or more than it's promoted the spread of good.

We are talking about races. 4e PoL is not based on alignment anymore. And d&d is not build on Good versus Evil. There is Neutrality that keeps the balance.

Homo sapiens never had competition in forms of aeon-old gods bent on the destruction of humans, flying lizards that can breathe fire, giants with regenerating capabilities and dead unholy monsters who don't care that they're supposed to be dead. With such monsters, mankind wouldn't ever have escaped the caves which it inhabited for many ten thousand years.
And don't get me started on squid-headed monsters who can blast your minds or frog-monsters who lay eggs into you that will hatch to become new giant frog-monsters.

Humans in d&d have magic powers that protect them against these hazards. If they didn't they would be extinct.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

My point is that this does not make sense. Time along, surge after surge of rising epic heroes these ancient-evils will eventually fall and PoL will be no more.

Except if you're going for verisimilitude there are just as many evil "epic characters" as good ones, and both groups are probably tiny compared to the vast majority of characters who, like most creatures, are unaligned and mainly pursuing their own interests.

For example, the tiefling empire of Bael Turath (sp?) probably included several epic-level human warlocks and wizards, who managed to negotiate a diabolic pact so twisted that it CREATED A NEW RACE. They fought to the death against the warriors of the neighboring Dragonborn empire, which (let's say) was led by Crae-Seth, epic-level warlord whose battle plans forced a deadly stalemate against the horrifying devil-legions. Good epic heroes against evil, with probably a whole lot of in-between epic heroes to boot.

You're imagining "Points of Light" as a world of black and white morality where evil is winning. This is the wrong way to see it. It's a world of shaded morality, where chaos is (temporarily) reigning after the fall of the latest human empire.

 

[xechnao]

Thinking about it a little more, I think it means any decent DM can think of a reason why the world remains PoL even with epic heroes out to save the day.

I probably mean that PoL does not make any good sense with epic heroes and another idea should be established.

 

[xechnao]

You're imagining "Points of Light" as a world of black and white morality where evil is winning. This is the wrong way to see it. It's a world of shaded morality, where chaos is (temporarily) reigning after the fall of the latest human empire.

No, I just can't imagine PoL having a long term in d&d epicness. It is not about morality. Sauron was eventually defeated. The end. D&D PoL can't extend forever if characters can rise and challenge gods. Eventually a side will win (or lose and perish) and conflict will have to come from a different reason than a PoL situation.

 

[Incenjucar]

No, I just can't imagine PoL having a long term in d&d epicness. It is not about morality. Sauron was eventually defeated. The end. D&D PoL can't extend forever if characters can rise and challenge gods. Eventually a side will win (or lose and perish) and conflict will have to come from a different reason than a PoL situation.

And then 100 years passes and a new evil is born or arrives from somewhere else and you have to start all over.

Beyond that, PoL has the tier system for a reason.

If you have, in fact, cleansed the land of evil, it becomes a PoL itself, and now you must cleanse the WORLD of darkness.


If you cleanse the WORLD of darkness, it is now a PoL, and it's time to move on to cleansing the PLANES of darkness.

And that is the longest adventure.

 

[xechnao]

And then 100 years passes and a new evil is born or arrives from somewhere else and you have to start all over.

Beyond that, PoL has the tier system for a reason.

If you have, in fact, cleansed the land of evil, it becomes a PoL itself, and now you must cleanse the WORLD of darkness.


If you cleanse the WORLD of darkness, it is now a PoL, and it's time to move on to cleansing the PLANES of darkness.

And that is the longest adventure.

And after this adventure ends then..

...each campaign will have to reset to a point somehow. I think we will have to miss PCs' legacy building from one campaign to the next as points that remained.

 

[Incenjucar]

And after this adventure ends then..

After this adventure ends planet Earth will be about five minutes away from being enveloped by the expansion of our Sun unless your DM has a fricking -tiny- cosmos.

And when it does?

Presuming you have escaped to another planet, your DM can just say "100 years pass, and things are all gone to hell again. Time to live up to your deific grandma's legacy.